44 knowledge Elizabeth II, has all but dis- appeared in Japan Even the Japan Com- munist Party newspaper, Akahata (Red Flag), which once demanded that the Emperor be replaced with the dictator- ship of the proletariat, has been ordered by the Party chairman to find more space for show-business engagements, to give readers a change from its blanket cover- age of the forthcoming royal marriage. A wedding hall in Kobe is offering replicas of tenth-century Kyoto court robes for hire, seventeen thousand dollars for the afternoon, with refreshments, so that loyal subjects can emulate TV previews of the ceremony. Business circles hope for a "princess boom" to lift Japan's slug- gish economy, and everyone, even in Ja- pan, loves a lover. Many things have con- tributed to the popularity of Japanese royalty, not least the story of a star- crossed romance and its imminent moon- in -June culmination. TIKE all love stories, this one begins L with a meeting arranged by fate, though this one had more than a little help from other interested parties. The occasion was the Tokyo variation on the enchanted evening, a musical afternoon tea given in Tokyo's Akasaka Detached Palace in honor of Princess Elena, of Spain, in town to open a Goya show. Akasaka is a marble mini-Versailles that was built in 1909 to show how far Japan had already modernized. These days, it accommodates visiting dignitaries and lesser state functions. A musical tea may sound nineteen-twenties, but no orchestra played bingo-bango, no one danced the tango-rather, a Japanese string quartet performed sedate Mozart. The room, high -ceilinged and silk-draped, was un- crowded. WhIte-gloved waiters served rice crackers, guests chatted decorously. He was a studious young man with a sonorous, oddly religious title, Hiro no Miya (Shrine of Broad Vision) Naruhito, then twenty-six, heir to the Chrysanthe- mum Throne, which is the oldest he- reditary job in the world. That afternoon, the Prince was at his bachelor quarters, a few hundred yards away, working on his master's degree in history, since awarded in Tokyo. He put aside his books and maps to drop in on the afternoon tea, partly to greet the Spanish princess, mostly for Mozart. He welcomed the visitor, he may even have heard some Mozart. More important (for him, and perhaps for us as well), he met, as ro- mantic novelists used to say, his destiny. She was Masako (Feminine Elegance) Owada, then twenty-two, eldest daugh- ter of Hisashi Owada, the Director- General of the Treaty Division of the Foreign Ministry-a high-powered Japa- nese bureaucrat. Masako herself had just passed the entrance examination for her father's ministry-a rare feat for a wom- an, or anyone, for that matter. The exam is brutally tough; a pass puts the candi- date among some eight hundred fast- track cIvil servants who in due course will run the ministries and, when and where it counts, Japan. Owada senior had ar- ranged the invitation to the musical tea (with one phone call to another arm of the bureaucracy, the Imperial Household Agency). Masako-san likes classical mu- sic, too. And she could get useful experi- ence meeting European royalty. Some commentators have hinted that the Foreign Ministry may have already fallen in love with the Imperial House- hold Agency. The theory is not absurd. With no patronage to dispense, the For- eign Ministry needs all the kone (or high- level connections) it can find, and a proud father could be pardoned for thinking that no one was too good for his clever daughter. If this calculation was made, the lady in question was unaware of it. A former Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Toru Nakagawa, was deputed to present Miss Owada to the Prince. An acquaintance from the Prince's university days beat him to it. The meeting, we now know, went rather well. No one seems to remember what the quartet played or (the Prince possibly ex- cepted) what Miss Owada had on. People seldom remember her clothes. Her lively features promise to wear well, but she is no beauty queen. A modelling agency would note short stature (half an inch taller than the Prince's five feet four THE NEW YOR.KER., MAY 10,1993 inches), prominent nose, determined chin, crooked teeth. a apanese call them "eight-tiered teeth," radiating a smile in that many directions, and find them fetching, like Western dimples.) A natu- ral athlete (tennis, skiing), she moves gracefully. On a Tokyo street, she could be one of the interchangeable female millions Japanese call O.L., office ladies. Five minutes' conversation-in Japanese, English, or French, each of which she speaks with native fluency, or in her use- ful German, Spanish, or Russian-will quickly disclose that the vivacious Miss Owada is very smart indeed. What did they talk about? Not, we may safely guess, pop music. She loves the outdoors. He jogs, swims, climbs mountains, loves skiing and tennis. His passion is history. She is an economist immersed in international affairs-his- tory in the making. He was back from Merton College, Oxford, where he had studied medieval river traffic on the Thames. She was just about to go to Ox- ford. (She already had a degree from Harvard.) She likes horses. His family has a twenty-horse stud farm, but no racehorses, or connections with the J apa- nese horsy crowd. He likes gyoza, Japa- nese steamed dumplings. She loves gyoza. They both relish Chinese-style spiced bean curd. A pair better fitted for the endless conversation of marriage would be hard to find. The Prince years later told TV viewers, "She is so pleasant she makes me unaware of the passing of time." Poets know the feeling. The Prince had fallen in love, Japanese style: he had found the partner he wanted to work with, for Jjfe. Miss Owada, however, had another promising career in view. There were further discreet meetings, one of them under the respectable cover of the Japan-British Society. Naruhito wanted his family to meet his new friend. Rare guests who have dined en famille with Emperor Akiliito, Empress Michiko, and their children report a delightful ex- perience. Empress Michiko, the daugh- ter of a wealthy flour-milling and soy- sauce-brewing family named Shoda, is a famous cook. Like any other Japanese wife she serves at table as well. Their children often join them. (Prince N aru- hi to has a younger brother and sister.) After dinner, there is sometimes a family musical performance The Emperor plays cello, the Empress harpsichord, Naruhito viola, the younger children vio-